The Queen of Water Read online

  I whisper, “Querer es poder,” and open my eyes.

  chapter 32

  IT WORKS!

  Three days later, I discover the house from my fantasy, only it’s yellow instead of purple, and more like a palace than a house. It makes me think of a giant daisy, with its fresh, white trim like petals. And best of all, it’s real, just a few blocks from the Plaza de Ponchos in downtown Otavalo. I peek inside and actually gasp. The ceilings are high, higher than a cathedral. And at the top of the ceiling is a window that lets sunlight pour over a lush indoor garden, spilling over with orange bird-of-paradise and pink bougainvillea and giant deep green tropical leaves with red flowers. There is so much photosynthesis happening right here in this house that the air must be extra rich with oxygen. Every single breath fills me up, makes my head swim.

  Carmen is at my side. We take a step into the entryway, our mouths hanging open. A minute earlier, walking along the sidewalk, we noticed the sign on the door that read PART-TIME HELP WANTED. CLEAN, POLITE GIRLS TO WORK IN KITCHEN. An after-school job would be perfect for both of us, we agreed. Carmen lives in a nice big apartment in Otavalo, but because of all her brothers and sisters, her family won’t buy her new clothes. She wants her own pocket money. And I’m tired of traveling to different communities to sell sambo sandwiches and candy and fruit every weekend.

  “This must be the home of someone important, like the mayor,” Carmen says, refolding her socks.

  “Or the president,” I say.

  “Or Chayanne,” she says. Like Marlenny and Marina, and every other teenage girl, Chayanne is her favorite singer.

  “Or MacGyver,” I say, giggling. I love giggling with Carmen. It makes me feel like a normal teenage student, like the ones in Kunu Yaku I watched with envy for years.

  A very short man, about my height, with a stocky square build and a gold tooth grins at us. “How can I help you ladies?”

  “We’re interested in the kitchen jobs,” I say.

  “Right this way, please,” he says with a twinkle in his eye.

  He leads us past dainty tables, like white iron lace, each holding a small vase of carnations. A few people are sipping coffee and eating yellow and white pie—lemon meringue or banana cream—that matches the building. Most of them are foreign-looking people in shorts and jeans with light hair and glasses and fair skin burnt pink, some chatting, some poring over books.

  We walk over wooden floors, polished to a sheen with pine-scented wax, past stairs that curve up to a wraparound balcony that overlooks the gardens. Finally, we arrive at the far end of the enormous room, stopping before a cluster of elegant blue velvet chairs.

  “Please wait here and make yourselves comfortable,” the man says.

  Carmen and I perch on the edge of the chairs, staring at each other, speechless, listening to the parakeets chirping in the indoor garden.

  Moments later, the short man returns with a very tall man with light skin and a mustache that has a few crumbs stuck in it. “Walter Blanco Morales,” he says, extending his hand. And I can tell from the smile crinkles at the corners of his eyes and his gentle way of moving that I want to work for him. This is where I want to be.

  “I’m Virginia. And this is Carmen.”

  He shakes our hands and launches into a tour of the palace. There are dozens of rooms, so many he has to number each one. And each with its own TV! Twelve bedrooms on the first floor alone. This man must have hundreds of friends who come visit him. The second floor has its own kitchen, and more tables, and a formal dining room lined with wrought-iron rails and floor-to-ceiling doors of glass. The tables are already set for the next meal: napkins folded in a fancy way; three different kinds of forks, two spoons, all shining and brilliant; two glasses with stems at each setting; flowers at the center of the table—white buds floating in glass globes. Airy music is playing, classical piano, floating from speakers in the walls.

  Don Walter is speaking in his low, calm voice, and I’m trying to listen, but all these beautiful things are bombarding my senses. “After school, you can come to help prep for dinner, and then after dinner, help clear the tables and wash dishes. And can you do Saturday and Sunday brunches as well?”

  We both nod. “When do we start?” I ask, feeling like a firework just set off, rising and rising and full of brilliant anticipation.

  After a few days of work, I realize this isn’t Don Walter’s private palace, but his hotel. The Hotel Otavalo, the best one in town. The foreigners who sit drinking coffee with their noses in books aren’t his friends and family, but paying guests, many of them gringuitos.

  Carmen thinks these pale foreigners are funny and strange, but I feel a bond with them, because like me, they don’t exactly belong here. Yet that doesn’t stop them. They are bold and adventurous, and even though many of them don’t speak much Spanish, they brazenly find a way to communicate. And best of all, they don’t seem to have much idea about the distinctions of mestizos and indígenas, or rich and poor—it’s as if we’re all just Ecuadorians to them. They’re blissfully ignorant of the invisible lines that separate one group from another.

  I especially like the gringuitos whose faces are buried in books. When I ask them eagerly, “What are you reading?” they let me flip through their books, mostly guidebooks with little maps of Otavalo and information about the markets and Quichua culture. The books are filled with glossy photos of indigenous women, showing close-ups of their thick strands of gold necklaces, the coral beads winding up their wrists, the lace and embroidery of their blouses, the woolen fachalinas folded intricately on their heads or knotted around their shoulers, their proud profiles against the Andes.

  Sometimes these tourists ask me about indigenous customs—a topic that fascinates them. I shrug and say, “I wouldn’t know,” and hope they don’t notice me flushing. If they ask where I’m from, I give vague answers, saying I used to live with my family in Ibarra. I would die if my coworkers overheard me admit the truth, if they discovered my secret. So I keep my roots hidden.

  It’s astonishing to me, the curiosity these foreigners have about indigenous culture. It’s the very reason they come to Otavalo, sometimes from all the way across the world. With gushing admiration, they photograph indigenous clothes, pay money to watch traditional dances, marvel over everything about Quichua celebrations, crafts, folktales, rituals, gods and goddesses.

  Talking to the tourists, I realize that if it weren’t for the indigenous culture here, these foreigners wouldn’t have much reason to come to Otavalo. Which means that Don Walter’s hotel might not be in business without indígenas. This gets me thinking. The mestizo business owners in town must realize that indígenas are important to our town’s economy. Which leads to the slippery conclusion: despite their prejudice against indígenas, especially poor ones, the mestizos value Quichua culture. It’s what makes their town special. This is a contradiction I can barely grasp.

  Spending my days in Otavalo, I notice that whenever there’s an indigenous holiday, like Inti Raymi—the Festival of the Sun—the hotels and streets and squares overflow with tourists. The city spotlights Quichua parades and rituals, like the pilgrimage to the Peguche waterfall, promoting them as tourist attractions. Incredibly, it never occurred to me before that indigenous culture might be the heart of this city, maybe even the heart of the entire province of Imbabura.

  Still, it seems safest to guard the secret of my roots. The well-off indígenas may be valued in some ways, but they keep to their own circles. If my coworkers or friends discovered who I was, they’d treat me differently, I’m sure of it. They’d expect me to hang out with other indígenas, people I have nothing in common with.

  And I don’t want to give up the fun I have with my coworkers, especially Don Lucho with his gold tooth. He’s the doorman and security guard, and he’s always cracking jokes while he’s waiting to carry suitcases up and down the stairs. My other coworkers, too, like to joke around, and I find myself laughing and dancing around the kitchen and happily f
lying up and down the stairs.

  After I do my homework in the lobby, I take the last bus back to Yana Urku at about eleven o’clock, arriving so exhausted I can barely drag myself home from the bus stop. It is strange, after the tinkling crystal luxury of the hotel, to lie on a woven mat on a wooden bed frame with Manuelito and Hermelinda pressed against me as I itch my flea bites for a few idle moments before falling asleep.

  I sleep for about five hours, then get up before dawn to take the bus to school. Even on weekend mornings, I have to leave early to work the breakfast shift at the hotel. After I get off work, I stay in the hotel café, doing my homework, which is easier than doing it at home. At the hotel, there’s better lighting, and tables and chairs, and plenty of people nearby to help with hard math problems.

  I barely see my parents anymore. My mother always wakes up early to heat up soup and eat with me while the rest of the family sleeps. Sometimes she stares at me as though she wants to ask me something, but then looks down at the ashes of the fire pit. Beyond the language divide, she probably has no idea what questions to ask me about my life. She’s never even been inside a colegio or a fancy hotel, places where I spend nearly all my time now. And I still don’t know our neighbors or relatives well enough to attempt to chat about the goings-on in our village. So, most of the time, we sip soup in silence.

  Papito occasionally asks me questions when I come home late at night. “Do you eat decent food for lunch and dinner? Do they treat you well at the hotel? Do you have enough money?” But he doesn’t ask me about what I’m learning, or what my research papers are about, or what books I’m reading. And I don’t know what questions to ask him about his world of farming and pasturing animals.

  My siblings and little cousins continue to act shy around me, huddling together and whispering with each other in Quichua. I’m too busy with school and work to try to draw them out of their shells, beyond giving them treats here and there.

  It’s painfully clear that I don’t fit into the world of my family. My world now is with my new friends in Otavalo.

  One morning at dawn, I’m in the dark bus, bumping down the steep, dusty dirt road to Otavalo. Cumbia music is blasting, too loud for me to sleep, and the driver is swerving around potholes, jerking me this way and that. I returned from the hotel last night around midnight; now, six hours later, I’m heading back again. I glimpse my reflection in the window. My face looks heavy, weary.

  I catch a whiff of woodsmoke, coming from my hair, and my stomach sinks. Earlier this morning, in the pitch black, I bathed and washed my hair in the wooden shack out back, crouching, shivering, wincing beneath buckets of frigid water. Afterward, over breakfast, my freshly washed hair must have absorbed the smoke from the fire pit. I sniff my school uniform, smelling traces of smoke saturating it, too, mingled with an animal smell—the reek of guinea pigs. Bending over to scratch the flea bites on my calves, I smell something else—manure—and notice a clump clinging to my shoe. Groaning, I make a mental note to scrape it off with a stick right when I get to town.

  I can’t do this anymore. If I keep this up, it’s only a matter of time before my classmates and coworkers discover my family’s poverty. I lean my forehead against the cold windowpane and shut my eyes. Under my breath, I whisper, “Querer es poder.” Over and over, I whisper my mantra. And then, gathering my last wisps of strength, I pull out Secrets to a Happy Life, flip to a random section, and reread it in the dim light.

  An hour later, by the end of the bus ride, I’ve come up with a plan.

  After school, I walk straight into the hotel, pausing only briefly to talk with Don Lucho. Before I lose my nerve, I find Don Walter. He’s sitting in a blue velvet chair in the lobby, going over an accounting notebook. He greets me warmly, as always, and when he sees my face, so hopeful and nervous, he asks, “What can I do for you, Virginia?”

  I take a deep breath. “Don Walter, is there a little space in this hotel where I can sleep for the nights?”

  Soft crinkles form at the corners of his eyes. “Your long commute’s been hard on you, hasn’t it?” He pauses, thinking. “Yes, I can find a place for you, Virginia. I’d be happy to.”

  I breathe out in relief.

  “You know,” he says, smiling, “our guests would be thrilled if you lived here. They love talking to you.” He closes his notebook and stands up. “Come on.”

  I’m walking on air as he leads me past the indoor garden, down the stairs, to a small, windowless room in the basement. It’s the ironing room, tucked in between a storage room and the laundry room. “This is the best I can do, Virginia. We’ll move a bed in here for you, and a dresser. Not luxurious, but I won’t charge you for it.”

  “Oh, this is perfect, Don Walter!” I want to cry, just thinking about the extra hours of sleep, the clean mattress, warm showers, indoor toilets, electric lights. “Thank you!”

  My parents don’t seem to mind me leaving. I suspect they may even be relieved. I’m certainly relieved, although a small part of me wishes we’d discovered something to talk about, some common ground, some way to connect. It might feel good to be able to forgive them, respect them, maybe even love them. But that hasn’t happened, and I’m beginning to doubt it ever will. I plan on making a token visit to my family every few months, for Sunday lunch, and then returning to the comfort of the Hotel Otavalo.

  And so, once again, I have a new home, and a new family.

  Don Walter becomes like a father to me. Every day, we talk about what I’m doing in school, and he asks about my projects and homework and tests. When I tell him about getting the highest grade in the class on my science exam, he says, “I’m proud of you, m’hija.” And when I tell him I’m having problems with my math homework, he sits down at the table and says, “Now let’s see if I can help you with that, m’hija.”

  I am inside my vision of how I’ve always wanted my life to be, living in a gorgeous home with people who like me, who care about me, who laugh with me, who read books.

  Still, there is a piece of me that worries I’ll be caught impersonating a mestiza girl, pretending to be one of the gente que puede, gente de clase. I’m walking a tightrope, careful with my words, hoping my friends and classmates and teachers and coworkers won’t discover my secret, because if they do, I will fall and crash. This scared piece of me gnaws at my stomach, makes it burn so badly that sometimes I can’t even eat; sometimes I double over, gasping in pain.

  Carmen and Sonia and I are at Esperanza’s house, sitting at the dining room table with our social studies books and notes spread out. We’re mostly talking about cute boys in our class, and only here and there studying for our exam on the ancient Incan empire.

  “Are you thirsty?” Esperanza asks. “Want some lemonade?”

  We nod, and I start to stand up, to help her make the drinks.

  But she stays seated and calls out, “Rosita!”

  An indigenous girl a couple of years younger than me—maybe twelve or thirteen—appears at the door to the patio, her hands red and wet, probably from washing clothes. She wipes them on her anaco and says, “Yes, Esperanza? What can I get you?”

  “Lemonade for me and my friends,” Esperanza says, not even looking at her. “And extra sugar.”

  When the girl places the lemonade in front of me, I mumble, “Thank you, Rosita,” and try to avoid her eyes, because there is a place inside me that aches when I look at her. Rosita is the same age as Esperanza, yet Rosita is serving and Esperanza is ordering, and no one seems to think this is strange or terrible or unfair. No one makes the connection that the ancient Incans we’re studying—a civilization respected throughout the world for its technology and art and architecture—are Rosita’s ancestors.

  I try to make sense of this, just as I’ve tried to make sense of the other contradictions I’ve been noticing more and more lately. How can people boast of Quichua culture in guidebooks and textbooks while overlooking the fact that their maids are Quichua? Maybe it’s similar to the way, while watching o
ur favorite soap opera, the Doctorita sobbed over the cruelty of Isaura’s enslavement while failing to see that she herself had enslaved me.

  Later, Rosita collects our empty glasses, slipping her arms between our piles of books and papers, unnoticed, well practiced at being invisible. I glance up and watch her walking to the sink, her hair wrapped in a ribbon hanging down to the small of her back. My stomach starts hurting and I push my thoughts away, hoping Rosita doesn’t realize that I am a traitor.

  Every day, I feel lucky it doesn’t occur to the other students that I might be from a poor indigenous family. Thank God they assume I’m gente de clase like them. They seem to truly like me. I become known as the girl to turn to when you need advice. I listen carefully and ask questions and give them suggestions. A lot of my advice comes from Secrets to a Happy Life, but some of it comes from things I’ve figured out on my own. I draw on what I’ve learned over three lifetimes—one in Yana Urku, one in Kunu Yaku, and the one I’m living now in Otavalo.

  After our talks, the girls always say they feel better. “Thank you, Virginia! You’re an angel.” And I smile, satisfied, like I did as a small child, after I gave limpiezas to troubled people to clean their spirits with eggs and fresh herbs. I remember when people exclaimed to my mother, “My, your daughter is a natural healer, isn’t she?” and Mamita said, “My daughter, she can do it.”

  I also become renowned in school for imitating famous singers, using an imaginary microphone, flinging my hair around and dancing and singing and pursing my lips. Carmen and Esperanza and Sonia clap, squealing with delight. All that time dressing up in the Doctorita’s clothes and blasting her stereo and dancing has paid off. My friends and I teach each other dance moves—salsa and cumbia—and talk about boys we wish we could dance with. Finally, I’m living like a normal teenage girl, making up for the years that were stolen from me. Being a little older than my classmates adds to my allure; they look up to me, admire me even.